Early history

During the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the geologic foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island.[84]

Peter Minuit is credited with the purchase of the island of Manhattan in 1626.

A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 aboard the purpose-built caravelLa Anunciada and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio (Saint Anthony's River). Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August. The Padrón Real of 1527, the first scientific map to show North America's east coast continuously, was informed by Gomes' expedition and labeled the Northeastern U.S. as Tierra de Esteban Gómez in his honor.[87]

The first non-Native American inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City was Juan Rodriguez (transliterated to Dutch as Jan Rodrigues), a merchant from Santo Domingo. Born in Santo Domingo of Portuguese and African descent, he arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–1614, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch. Broadway, from 159th Street to 218th Street in Upper Manhattan, is named Juan Rodriguez Way in his honor.[90][91]

Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly.[100] To attract settlers, the Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen ("patroons", or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded swathes of land in New Netherland, along with local political autonomy and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success.[101]

Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General. In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economy growth, the Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade in New Netherland, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies).[100][102]

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began his tenure as the last Director-General of New Netherland. During his tenure, the population of New Amsterdam grew from 2,000 to 8,000. Stuyvesant has been credited with improving law and order in the colony; however, he also earned a reputation as a despotic leader. He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church, and blocked other religious groups (including Quakers, Jews, and Lutherans) from establishing houses of worship.[103] The Dutch West India Company would eventually attempt to ease tensions between Stuyvesant and residents of New Amsterdam.[104]

English rule

In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops led by Colonel Richard Nicolls without bloodshed.[103][104] The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom.[105] The English promptly renamed the fledgling city "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II of England).[106] The transfer was confirmed in 1667 by the Treaty of Breda, which concluded the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[107]

Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and some epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizable population losses for the Lenape between the years 1660 and 1670.[110] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.[111] New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population to the disease in 1702 alone.[112][113]

New York grew in importance as a trading port while under British rule in the early 1700s. It also became a center of slavery, with 42% of households holding slaves by 1730, more than any other city other than Charleston, South Carolina.[114] Most slaveholders held a few or several domestic slaves, but others hired them out to work at labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banks and shipping tied to the American South. Discovery of the African Burying Ground in the 1990s, during construction of a new federal courthouse near Foley Square, revealed that tens of thousands of Africans had been buried in the area in the colonial years.

American Revolution

The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765 as the Sons of Liberty organized in the city, skirmishing over the next ten years with British troops stationed there. The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 entirely within the modern-day borough of Brooklyn. After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made the city their military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves who joined the British lines for freedom newly promised by the Crown for all fighters. As many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation. When the British forces evacuated at the close of the war in 1783, they transported 3,000 freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia. They resettled other freedmen in England and the Caribbean.

Nineteenth century

Under New York State's gradual abolition act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties.[120][121] Together with slaves freed by their masters after the Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-black population gradually developed in Manhattan. Under such influential United States founders as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate black children.[122] It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state, and free blacks struggled afterward with discrimination. New York interracial abolitionist activism continued; among its leaders were graduates of the African Free School. The city's black population reached more than 16,000 in 1840.[123]

The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants. Over 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, upwards of a quarter of the city's population.[127] There was also extensive immigration from the German provinces, where revolutions had disrupted societies, and Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860.[128]

Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing the city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called upon the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on.[122] Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $5,663 in 2019) commutation fee to hire a substitute,[129][130] led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.[122] The situation deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on black New Yorkers and their property after fierce competition for a decade between Irish immigrants and black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground, with more than 200 children escaping harm due to efforts of the New York City Police Department, which was mainly made up of Irish immigrants.[128] According to historian James M. McPherson (2001), at least 120 people were killed. In all, eleven black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of blacks to flee the city for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and New Jersey; the black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865, which it had last been in 1820. The white working class had established dominance.[128][131] Violence by longshoremen against black men was especially fierce in the docks area.[128] It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.[132]

Modern history

In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens.[133] The opening of the subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.

New York's non-white population was 36,620 in 1890.[135] New York City was a prime destination in the early twentieth century for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City was home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition. The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height and creating an identifiable skyline.

New York became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London. The metropolitan area surpassed the 10 million mark in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity in human history.[136] The difficult years of the Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.[137]

Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and the development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens. New York emerged from the war unscathed as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations Headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.[138]

In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.[143] While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.[144] By the mid 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy. New York's population reached all-time highs in the 2000 Census and then again in the 2010 Census.

United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the original World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

The city's land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times; reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s.[156] Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan.[157]

The city's total area is 468.484 square miles (1,213.37 km2), including 302.643 sq mi (783.84 km2) of land and 165.841 sq mi (429.53 km2) of this is water.[158][159]
The highest point in the city is Todt Hill on Staten Island, which, at 409.8 feet (124.9 m) above sea level, is the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine.[160] The summit of the ridge is mostly covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.[161]

The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstonerowhouses and townhouses and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930.[169] In contrast, New York City also has neighborhoods that are less densely populated and feature free-standing dwellings. In neighborhoods such as Riverdale (in the Bronx), Ditmas Park (in Brooklyn), and Douglaston (in Queens), large single-family homes are common in various architectural styles such as Tudor Revival and Victorian.[170][171][172]

Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835.[173] A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the wooden roof-mounted water towers. In the 1800s, the city required their installation on buildings higher than six stories to prevent the need for excessively high water pressures at lower elevations, which could break municipal water pipes.[174]Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, such as Jackson Heights.[175]

According to the United States Geological Survey, an updated analysis of seismic hazard in July 2014 revealed a "slightly lower hazard for tall buildings" in New York City than previously assessed. Scientists estimated this lessened risk based upon a lower likelihood than previously thought of slow shaking near the city, which would be more likely to cause damage to taller structures from an earthquake in the vicinity of the city.[176]

New York City is often referred to collectively as the five boroughs, and in turn, there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the boroughs, many with a definable history and character to call their own. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States (Staten island would be ranked 37th) ; these same boroughs are coterminous with the four most densely populated counties in the United States (New York [Manhattan], Kings [Brooklyn], Bronx, and Queens).

Brooklyn (Kings County), on the western tip of Long Island, is the city's most populous borough. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social, and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods, and a distinctive architectural heritage. Downtown Brooklyn is the only central core neighborhood in the outer boroughs. The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country.[182]Marine Park[183] and Prospect Park are the two largest parks in Brooklyn.

Winters are cold and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachians keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 32.6 °F (0.3 °C);[197] temperatures usually drop to 10 °F (−12 °C) several times per winter,[197][198] and reach 60 °F (16 °C) several days in the coldest winter month.[197] Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from chilly to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically warm to hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of 76.5 °F (24.7 °C) in July.[197] Nighttime conditions are often exacerbated by the urban heat island phenomenon, while daytime temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average of 17 days each summer[199] and in some years exceed 100 °F (38 °C). Extreme temperatures have ranged from −15 °F (−26 °C), recorded on February 9, 1934, up to 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936.[199] The average water temperature of the nearby Atlantic Ocean ranges from 39.7 °F (4.3 °C) in February to 74.1 °F (23.4 °C) in August.[200]

The city receives 49.9 inches (1,270 mm) of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. Average winter snowfall between 1981 and 2010 has been 25.8 inches (66 cm); this varies considerably from year to year.[199]Hurricanes and tropical storms are rare in the New York area, but they are not unheard of and always have the potential to strike the area.[201]Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York City on the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan and other areas of the city and cutting off electricity in many parts of the city and its suburbs.[202] The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the city and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.[203][204]

In its 2013 ParkScore ranking, the Trust for Public Land reported that the park system in New York City was the second best park system among the 50 most populous US cities, behind the park system of Minneapolis.[206] ParkScore ranks urban park systems by a formula that analyzes median park size, park acres as percent of city area, the percent of city residents within a half-mile of a park, spending of park services per resident, and the number of playgrounds per 10,000 residents.

Military installations

New York City is home to Fort Hamilton, the U.S. military's only active duty installation within the city.[224] Established in 1825 in Brooklyn on the site of a small battery utilized during the American Revolution, it is one of America's longest serving military forts.[225] Today Fort Hamilton serves as the headquarters of the North Atlantic Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and for the New York City Recruiting Battalion. It also houses the 1179th Transportation Brigade, the 722nd Aeromedical Staging Squadron, and a military entrance processing station. Other formerly active military reservations still utilized for National Guard and military training or reserve operations in the city include Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island and Fort Totten in Queens.

New York City is the most populous city in the United States,[9] with an estimated record high of 8,537,673 residents as of 2016,[7] incorporating more immigration into the city than outmigration since the 2010 United States Census.[239][240] More than twice as many people live in New York City as in the second-most populous U.S. city (Los Angeles),[9] and within a smaller area. New York City gained more residents between April 2010 and July 2014 (316,000) than any other U.S. city.[9] New York City's population is about 43% of New York State's population[241] and about 36% of the population of the New York metropolitan area.[242]

The city's population in 2010 was 44% white (33.3% non-Hispanic white), 25.5% black (23% non-Hispanic black), 0.7% Native American, and 12.7% Asian.[248]Hispanics of any race represented 28.6% of the population,[248] while Asians constituted the fastest-growing segment of the city's population between 2000 and 2010; the non-Hispanic white population declined 3 percent, the smallest recorded decline in decades; and for the first time since the Civil War, the number of blacks declined over a decade.[249]

Asian Americans in New York City, according to the 2010 Census, number more than one million, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles.[256] New York contains the highest total Asian population of any U.S. city proper.[257] The New York City borough of Queens is home to the state's largest Asian American population and the largest Andean (Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, and Bolivian) populations in the United States, and is also the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.[185][186] The Chinese population constitutes the fastest-growing nationality in New York State; multiple satellites of the original Manhattan Chinatown, in Brooklyn, and around Flushing, Queens, are thriving as traditionally urban enclaves - while also expanding rapidly eastward into suburban Nassau County[258] on Long Island,[259] as the New York metropolitan region and New York State have become the top destinations for new Chinese immigrants, respectively, and large-scale Chinese immigration continues into New York City and surrounding areas,[34][260][261][262][263][264] with the largest metropolitan Chinese diaspora outside Asia,[41][265] including an estimated 812,410 individuals in 2015.[266] In 2012, 6.3% of New York City was of Chinese ethnicity, with nearly three-fourths living in either Queens or Brooklyn, geographically on Long Island.[267] A community numbering 20,000 Korean-Chinese (Chaoxianzu or Joseonjok) is centered in Flushing, Queens, while New York City is also home to the largest Tibetan population outside China, India, and Nepal, also centered in Queens.[268]Koreans made up 1.2% of the city's population, and Japanese 0.3%. Filipinos were the largest Southeast Asian ethnic group at 0.8%, followed by Vietnamese, who made up 0.2% of New York City's population in 2010. Indians are the largest South Asian group, comprising 2.4% of the city's population, with Bangladeshis and Pakistanis at 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively.[269] Queens is the preferred borough of settlement for Asian Indians, Koreans, Filipinos,[270] and Malaysians[33] and other Southeast Asians;[271] while Brooklyn is receiving large numbers of both West Indian and Asian Indian immigrants.

Map of racial distribution in New York, 2010 U.S. Census. Each dot is 25 people: White, Black, Asian, Hispanic or Other (yellow)

Transgender contribution

Wayne R. Dynes, author of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, wrote that drag queens were the only "transgender folks around" during the June 1969 Stonewall riots. "None of them in fact made a major contribution to the movement."[293] Others say the transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality during the period of the Stonewall riots and thereafter.[293] New York City is home to the largest transgender population in the United States, estimated at 25,000 in 2016.[294] However, until the Stonewall riots, this community had felt marginalized and neglected by the gay community.[293]

Religion

Christianity (59%), made up of Roman Catholicism (33%), Protestantism (23%), and other Christians (3%), was the most prevalently practiced religion in New York as of 2014,[295] followed by Judaism, with approximately 1.1 million Jews in New York City.[296][297] over half living in Brooklyn;[298] The Jewish population makes up 18.4% of the city.[299]Islam ranks third in New York City, with official estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1,000,000 observers and including 10% of the city's public schoolchildren,[300] followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, and a variety of other religions, as well as atheism. In 2014, 24% self-identified with no organized religious affiliation.[295]

Income

New York City has a high degree of income disparity as indicated by its Gini Coefficient of 0.5 for the city overall and 0.6 for Manhattan.[302] In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in New York County (Manhattan) was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States.[303] As of 2016, New York City had the second-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world with 95, after Beijing,[304] including former MayorMichael Bloomberg.[305] New York also had the highest density of millionaires per capita among major U.S. cities in 2014, at 4.6% of residents.[306] Lower Manhattan has been experiencing a baby boom, with the area south of Canal Street witnessing 1,086 births in 2010, 12% greater than 2009 and over twice the number born in 2001.[307]

New York is a global hub of international business and commerce. In 2012, New York City topped the first Global Economic Power Index, published by The Atlantic (to be differentiated from a namesake list published by the Martin Prosperity Institute), with cities ranked according to criteria reflecting their presence on similar lists as published by other entities.[309] The city is a major center for banking and finance, retailing, world trade, transportation, tourism, real estate, new media, traditional media, advertising, legal services, accountancy, insurance, theater, fashion, and the arts in the United States; while Silicon Alley, metonymous for New York's broad-spectrum high technology sphere, continues to expand. The Port of New York and New Jersey is also a major economic engine, handling record cargo volume in the first half of 2014.[310] In February 2017, New York City's unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, the lowest in the city's recorded history, with the city achieving the status of what many economists refer to as full employment.[311]

Real estate is a major force in the city's economy, as the total value of all New York City property was assessed at US$1.072 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year, an increase of 10.6% from the previous year with 89% of the increase coming from market effects.[317] The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at US$1.1 billion in 2006.[317] New York City is home to some of the nation's—and the world's—most valuable real estate. 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007 for US$510 million, about $1,589 per square foot ($17,104/m²), breaking the barely month-old record for an American office building of $1,476 per square foot ($15,887/m²) set in the June 2007 sale of 660 Madison Avenue.[318] According to Forbes, in 2014, Manhattan was home to six of the top ten zip codes in the United States by median housing price.[319]Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commands the highest retail rents in the world, at USTemplate:Convert/$/ft2 in 2017.[320]

Other important sectors include medical research and technology, non-profit institutions, and universities. Manufacturing accounts for a significant but declining share of employment, although the city's garment industry is showing a resurgence in Brooklyn.[323] Food processing is a US$5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents.

Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with up to US$234 million worth of exports each year.[324] Entrepreneurs were forming a "Chocolate District" in Brooklyn as of 2014,[325] while Godiva, one of the world's largest chocolatiers, continues to be headquartered in Manhattan.[326]

Wall Street

New York City's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S.financial industry, metonymously known as Wall Street. The city's securities industry, enumerating 163,400 jobs in August 2013, continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and an important economic engine, accounting in 2012 for 5 percent of the city's private sector jobs, 8.5 percent (US$3.8 billion) of its tax revenue, and 22 percent of the city's total wages, including an average salary of US$360,700.[327] Many large financial companies are headquartered in New York City, and the city is also home to a burgeoning number of financial startup companies.

Many of the world's largest media conglomerates are also based in the city. Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m2) of office space in 2015,[335] making it the largest office market in the United States,[336] while Midtown Manhattan, with nearly 400 million square feet (37.2 million m2) in 2015,[335] is the largest central business district in the world.[337]

Tourism is a vital industry for New York City, which has witnessed a growing combined volume of international and domestic tourists, receiving a seventh consecutive annual record of approximately 61 million visitors in 2016.[56] Tourism had generated an all-time high US$61.3 billion in overall economic impact for New York City in 2014,[56] pending 2015 statistics. Approximately 12 million visitors to New York City were from outside the United States, with the highest numbers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, and China. According to the website reuters.com, "New York City tourism climb[ed] record high in 2015 for [the] sixth year.".[56]

Manhattan was on track to have an estimated 90,000 hotel rooms at the end of 2014, a 10% increase from 2013.[353] In October 2014, the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion, making it the world's most expensive hotel ever sold.[354]

Media and entertainment

New York is a prominent location for the American entertainment industry, with many films, television series, books, and other media being set there.[355] As of 2012, New York City was the second largest center for filmmaking and television production in the United States, producing about 200 feature films annually, employing 130,000 individuals; the filmed entertainment industry has been growing in New York, contributing nearly US$9 billion to the New York City economy alone as of 2015,[356] and by volume, New York is the world leader in independent film production[357] – one-third of all American independent films are produced in New York City.[358] The Association of Independent Commercial Producers is also based in New York.[359] In the first five months of 2014 alone, location filming for television pilots in New York City exceeded the record production levels for all of 2013,[360] with New York surpassing Los Angeles as the top North American city for the same distinction during the 2013/2014 cycle.[361]

The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The three major American broadcast networks are all headquartered in New York: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Many cable networks are based in the city as well, including MTV, Fox News, HBO, Showtime, Bravo, Food Network, AMC, and Comedy Central. The City of New York operates a public broadcast service, NYCTV,[369] that has produced several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods and city government.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) operates the public hospitals and clinics in New York City. A public benefit corporation with $6.7 billion in annual revenues, HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States serving 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents.[384] HHC was created in 1969 by the New York State Legislature as a public benefit corporation (Chapter 1016 of the Laws 1969).[385] HHC operates 11 acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the poor and working class. HHC's MetroPlus Health Plan is one of the New York area's largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance and is the plan of choice for nearly half million New Yorkers.[386]

HHC's facilities annually provide millions of New Yorkers services interpreted in more than 190 languages.[387] The most well-known hospital in the HHC system is Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States. Bellevue is the designated hospital for treatment of the President of the United States and other world leaders if they become sick or injured while in New York City.[388] The president of HHC is Ramanathan Raju, MD, a surgeon and former CEO of the Cook County health system in Illinois.[389]

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been the largest police force in the United States by a significant margin, with over 35,000 sworn officers.[390] Members of the NYPD are frequently referred to by politicians, the media, and their own police cars by the nickname, New York's Finest.

Crime has continued an overall downward trend in New York City since the 1990s.[391] In 2012, the NYPD came under scrutiny for its use of a stop-and-frisk program,[392][393][394] which has undergone several policy revisions since then. In 2014, New York City had the third lowest murder rate among the largest U.S. cities,[395] having become significantly safer after a spike in crime in the 1970s through 1990s.[396] Violent crime in New York City decreased more than 75% from 1993 to 2005, and continued decreasing during periods when the nation as a whole saw increases.[397] By 2002, New York City's crime rate was similar to that of Provo, Utah, and was ranked 197th in crime among the 216 U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000.[397] In 2005, the homicide rate was at its lowest level since 1966,[398] and in 2007, the city recorded fewer than 500 homicides for the first time ever since crime statistics were first published in 1963.[399] In 2015, 50.5% of New York City misdemeanor assault suspects were black, 33.3% Hispanic, 11.1% white, 4.8% Asian/Pacific Islander and 0.3% Native American.[400] New York City experienced 352 homicides in 2015,[401] its second lowest number on record.[402]

Sociologists and criminologists have not reached consensus on the explanation for the dramatic decrease in the city's crime rate. Some attribute the phenomenon to new tactics used by the NYPD,[403] including its use of CompStat and the broken windows theory.[404] Others cite the end of the crack epidemic and demographic changes,[405] including from immigration.[406] Another theory is that widespread exposure to lead pollution from automobile exhaust, which can lower intelligence and increase aggression levels, incited the initial crime wave in the mid-20th century, most acutely affecting heavily trafficked cities like New York. A strong correlation was found demonstrating that violent crime rates in New York and other big cities began to fall after lead was removed from American gasoline in the 1970s.[407] Another theory cited to explain New York City's falling homicide rate is the inverse correlation between the number of murders and the increasingly wetter climate in the city.[408]

The New York City Fire Department faces highly multifaceted firefighting challenges in many ways unique to New York. In addition to responding to building types that range from wood-frame single family homes to high-rise structures, there are many secluded bridges and tunnels, as well as large parks and wooded areas that can give rise to brush fires. New York is also home to one of the largest subway systems in the world, consisting of hundreds of miles of tunnel with electrified track.

The FDNY headquarters is located at 9 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn,[412] and the FDNY Fire Academy is located on Randalls Island.[413] There are three Bureau of Fire Communications alarm offices which receive and dispatch alarms to appropriate units. One office, at 11 Metrotech Center in Brooklyn, houses Manhattan/Citywide, Brooklyn, and Staten Island Fire Communications. The Bronx and Queens offices are in separate buildings.

Arts

New York City has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries of all sizes.[427] The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.[427] Wealthy business magnates in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as the famed Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that would become internationally established. The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theater productions, and in the 1880s, New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began featuring a new stage form that became known as the Broadway musical. Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, productions such as those of Harrigan and Hart, George M. Cohan, and others used song in narratives that often reflected themes of hope and ambition.

Performing arts

Broadway theatre is one of the premier forms of English-language theatre in the world, named after Broadway, the major thoroughfare that crosses Times Square,[428] also sometimes referred to as "The Great White Way".[429][430][431] Forty-one venues in Midtown Manhattan's Theatre District, each with at least 500 seats, are classified as Broadway theatres. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately US$1.27 billion worth of tickets in the 2013–2014 season, an 11.4% increase from US$1.139 billion in the 2012–2013 season. Attendance in 2013–2014 stood at 12.21 million, representing a 5.5% increase from the 2012–2013 season's 11.57 million.[432]

Visual arts

New York City is home to hundreds of cultural institutions and historic sites, many of which are internationally known.
Museum Mile is the name for a section of Fifth Avenue running from 82nd to 105th streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,[436] in an area sometimes called Upper Carnegie Hill.[437] The Mile, which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world, is actually three blocks longer than one mile (1.6 km). Ten museums occupy the length of this section of Fifth Avenue.[438] The tenth museum, the Museum for African Art, joined the ensemble in 2009, although its museum at 110th Street, the first new museum constructed on the Mile since the Guggenheim in 1959,[439] opened in late 2012. In addition to other programming, the museums collaborate for the annual Museum Mile Festival, held each year in June, to promote the museums and increase visitation.[440] Many of the world's most lucrative art auctions are held in New York City.

Accent and dialect

The New York area is home to a distinctive regional speech pattern called the New York dialect, alternatively known as Brooklynese or New Yorkese. It has generally been considered one of the most recognizable accents within American English.[447] The classic version of this dialect is centered on middle and working-class people of European descent. The influx of non-European immigrants in recent decades has led to changes in this distinctive dialect,[448] and the traditional form of this speech pattern is no longer as prevalent among general New Yorkers as in the past.[448]

The traditional New York area accent is characterized as non-rhotic, so that the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant; hence the pronunciation of the city name as "New Yawk."[448] There is no [ɹ] in words like park[pɑək] or [pɒək] (with vowel backed and diphthongized due to the low-back chain shift), butter[bʌɾə], or here[hiə]. In another feature called the low back chain shift, the [ɔ] vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, chocolate, and coffee and the often homophonous[ɔr] in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American. In the most old-fashioned and extreme versions of the New York dialect, the vowel sounds of words like "girl" and of words like "oil" became a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This would often be misperceived by speakers of other accents as a reversal of the er and oy sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey" (Jersey), "Toidy-Toid Street" (33rd St.) and "terlet" (toilet).[448] The character Archie Bunker from the 1970s sitcom All in the Family (played by Carroll O'Connor) was an example of having used this pattern of speech, which continues to fade in its overall presence.

Rapid transit

Mass transit in New York City, most of which runs 24 hours a day, accounts for one in every three users of mass transit in the United States, and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in the New York City Metropolitan Area.[476][477]

Public transport is essential in New York City. 54.6% of New Yorkers commuted to work in 2005 using mass transit.[483] This is in contrast to the rest of the United States, where about 90% of commuters drive automobiles to their workplace.[484] According to the New York City Comptroller, workers in the New York City area spend an average of 6 hours and 18 minutes getting to work each week, the longest commute time in the nation among large cities.[485] New York is the only US city in which a majority (52%) of households do not have a car; only 22% of Manhattanites own a car.[486] Due to their high usage of mass transit, New Yorkers spend less of their household income on transportation than the national average, saving $19 billion annually on transportation compared to other urban Americans.[487]

Ferries

The Staten Island Ferry is the world's busiest ferry route, carrying over 23 million passengers from July 2015 through June 2016 on the 5.2-mile (8.4 km) route between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan and running 24 hours a day.[498] Other ferry systems shuttle commuters between Manhattan and other locales within the city and the metropolitan area.

NYC Ferry, a NYCEDC initiative with routes that are proposed to travel to all five boroughs, was launched in 2017, with second graders choosing the names of the ferries.[499] Meanwhile, Seastreak ferry announced construction of a 600-passenger high-speed luxury ferry in September 2016, to shuttle riders between the Jersey Shore and Manhattan, anticipated to start service in 2017; this would be the largest vessel in its class.[500]

New York City is located on one of the world's largest natural harbors,[512] and the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island are (primarily) coterminous with islands of the same names, while Queens and Brooklyn are located at the west end of the larger Long Island, and The Bronx is located at the southern tip of New York State's mainland. This situation of boroughs separated by water led to the development of an extensive infrastructure of well-known bridges and tunnels.

Manhattan Island is linked to New York City's outer boroughs and New Jersey by several tunnels as well. The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world.[517] The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers. The Holland Tunnel, connecting Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey, was the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel when it opened in 1927.[518][519] The Queens-Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940.[520] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.[521] The Hugh L. Carey Tunnel runs underneath Battery Park and connects the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn.

New York's high rate of public transit use, over 200,000 daily cyclists as of 2014,[524] and many pedestrian commuters make it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States.[525] Walk and bicycle modes of travel account for 21% of all modes for trips in the city; nationally the rate for metro regions is about 8%.[526] In both its 2011 and 2015 rankings, Walk Score named New York City the most walkable large city in the United States.[527][528][529]Citibank sponsored the introduction of 10,000 public bicycles for the city's bike-share project in the summer of 2013.[530] Research conducted by Quinnipiac University showed that a majority of New Yorkers support the initiative.[531] New York City's numerical "in-season cycling indicator" of bicycling in the city hit an all-time high in 2013.[532]

Water purity and availability

New York City is supplied with drinking water by the protected Catskill Mountainswatershed.[533] As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in the United States the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require purification by water treatment plants.[534] The Croton Watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a US$3.2 billion water purification plant to augment New York City's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's current availability of water.[535] The ongoing expansion of New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, an integral part of the New York City water supply system, is the largest capital construction project in the city's history,[536] with segments serving Manhattan and The Bronx completed, and with segments serving Brooklyn and Queens planned for construction in 2020.[537]

Environmental revitalization

Newtown Creek, a 3.5-mile (6-kilometer) a long estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, has been designated a Superfund site for environmental clean-up and remediation of the waterway's recreational and economic resources for many communities.[538] One of the most heavily used bodies of water in the Port of New York and New Jersey, it had been one of the most contaminated industrial sites in the country,[539] containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30 million US gallons (110,000 m3) of spilled oil, including the Greenpoint oil spill, raw sewage from New York City's sewer system,[539] and other accumulation.

Government and politics

Government

New York City Hall is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions.

New York City has been a metropolitan municipality with a mayor–council form of government[540] since its consolidation in 1898. The government of New York is more centralized than that of most other U.S. cities. In New York City, the city government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services.

Politics

The present mayor is Bill de Blasio, the first Democrat since 1993.[545] He was elected in 2013 with over 73% of the vote, and assumed office on January 1, 2014.

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. As of April 2016, 69% of registered voters in the city are Democrats and 10% are Republicans.[546] New York City has not been carried by a Republican in a statewide or presidential election since President Calvin Coolidge won the five boroughs in 1924. In 2012, Democrat Barack Obama became the first presidential candidate of any party to receive more than 80% of the overall vote in New York City, sweeping all five boroughs. Party platforms center on affordable housing, education, and economic development, and labor politics are of importance in the city.

New York is the most important source of political fundraising in the United States, as four of the top five ZIP codes in the nation for political contributions are in Manhattan. The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry.[547] The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. It receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). City residents and businesses also spent an additional $4.1 billion in the 2009–2010 fiscal year to the state of New York than the city received in return.[548]

Notable people

Global outreach

In 2006, the Sister City Program of the City of New York, Inc. was restructured and renamed New York City Global Partners. New York City has expanded its international outreach via this program to a network of cities worldwide, promoting the exchange of ideas and innovation between their citizenry and policymakers, according to the city's website. New York's historic sister cities are denoted below by the year they joined New York City's partnership network.[549]

^Plan your visitScript error, United Nations. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The Headquarters of the United Nations is located in New York City, along the East River. When you pass through the gates of the United Nations visitors’ entrance, you enter an international territory. This 18-acre site does not belong to just one country, but to all countries that have joined the Organization; currently, the United Nations has 193 Member States."

^World Trade Center Transportation Hub, World Trade Center. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The state-of-the-art World Trade Center Transportation Hub, completed in 2016, serves 250,000 Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) daily commuters and millions of annual visitors from around the world. At approximately 800,000 square feet, the Hub, designed by internationally acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava, is the third largest transportation center in New York City."

^One World Trade CenterScript error, SkyscraperPage.com. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The roof height is the same as original One World Trade Center. The building is topped out by a 124-meter (408-foot) spire. So the tower rises 1,776 feet (541-meter) which marks the year of the American declaration of Independence."

^Nocera, Joe. "Two Days in September", The New York Times, September 14, 2012. Accessed May 6, 2017. "On the left, that anger led, a year ago, to the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Thus, Anniversary No. 2: Sept. 17, 2011, was the date Occupy Wall Street took over Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, which soon led to similar actions in cities across the country. The movement’s primary issue was income inequality — 'We are the 99 percent,' they used to chant."

^Washington, D.C. is 228 miles (367 km) driving distance from New York, and Boston is 217 miles (349 km) driving distance from New York. – Google Maps

^Staff. "Alchemy borrows $220M for Woolworth conversion"Script error, Real Estate Weekly, June 15, 2016. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The neo-gothic Woolworth Building was commissioned by Frank W. Woolworth in 1910 as his eponymous company’s new headquarters and designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert. The building was completed in 1913 and was for 17 years the tallest building in the world."

^Plunz, Richard A. (1990). "Chapters 3 [Rich and Poor] & 4 [Beyond the Tenement]". History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type and Change in the American Metropolis. Columbia University Press. ISBN0-231-06297-4.

^Foderaro, Lisa W. "How Big Is That Park? City Now Has the Answer", New York Times, May 31, 2013. Accessed February 9, 2017. "But the biggest loser was clearly Flushing Meadows. Previously the third-largest park in the city, it dropped to fourth place after the new analysis put its actual acreage at 897 (897.62 to be precise), down from 1,255 acres."

^National Tennis Center Strategic Vision Project, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The 42-acre NTC is located within Flushing Meadows Corona Park on parkland leased by NYC Parks to USTA and is one of the world’s largest public recreational tennis facilities. For 11 months of the year, NTC facilities are open to the public for indoor and outdoor tennis. The NTC is also host to the US Open, one of the sport’s four Grand Slam championship tennis tournaments."

^via Associated Press. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is blooming!", NBC News, July 2, 2008. Accessed February 9, 2017. "Despite its urban image, the Bronx has 7,000 acres of park land, about 25 percent of its total area. In addition to Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, the borough's green spaces include the New York Botanical Garden; a 19th century garden overlooking the Hudson River called Wave Hill; and Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay parks, where you can bird-watch, play golf and ride horses."

^Conference House Park, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Accessed February 9, 2017. "On September 11, 1776, this house was the site of a conference between British Lord Admiral Richard Howe and Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge. The talks occurred just two months after the Declaration of Independence had been signed. With the British controlling New York City, Long Island, and Staten Island, the Americans seemed headed for defeat. Lord Howe offered to end the conflict peacefully if the American colonies would return to British control, but the Americans refused to give up their struggle for independence."

^ abThe Encyclopedia of New York City, ed. Kenneth T. Jackson (Yale 1995, ISBN0-300-05536-6), page 923, citing "U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census of Population 1960 (vol.1, part A, table 28), 1970, 1980, 1990". After annexing part of the Bronx in 1874, the population of the then-New York City was 1,206,299 in 1880 and 1,515,301 in 1890.

^Harrington, Greene and (1932). American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790. New York.

^Rosenwaike, Ira (1972). Population History of New York City. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. p. 8. ISBN0-8156-2155-8.

^U.S. Census, from The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1929 (reprinted in 1971 by American Heritage Press and Workman Publishing, ISBN0-07-071881-4), page 503.

^The Newest New Yorkers: 2013, New York City Department of City Planning, December 2013. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The immigrant share of the population has also doubled since 1965, to 37 percent. With foreign-born mothers accounting for 51 percent of all births, approximately 6-in-10 New Yorkers are either immigrants or the children of immigrants."

^Shih, Gerry via Associated Press. "Beijing overtakes NYC as 'Billionaire Capital'", USA Today, February 24, 2016. Accessed February 9, 2017. "The Chinese capital has overtaken the Big Apple as home to the most billionaires — 100 to 95 — according to Hurun, a Shanghai firm that publishes a monthly magazine and releases yearly rankings and research about the world’s richest people and their spending habits."